English stories 46 psi ence fiction chris boucher

Chloe thought of her as elfin, knowing that elves were reputed to be malicious as well as delightful.'Rats are drawn to any place of death.' 'Only if the corpse is still there,' Ralph sa

Psi-ence Fiction by Chris Boucher

Published by BBC Worldwide Ltd,

Woodlands, 80 Wood Lane

London Wl 2 OTT

First published 2001

Copyright © Chris Boucher 2001

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Original series broadcast on the BBC

Format © BBC 1963 Doctor Who and TARDIS are trademarks of the BBC

ISBN 0 563 53814 7 Imaging by Black Sheep, copyright © BBC 2001

Typeset in Garamond by Keystroke,

Jacaranda Lodge, Wolverhampton

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Mackays of Chatham Cover printed by Belmont PressLtd, Northampton

For Lynda

Chapter One

It was so very dark now the moon had set Chloe shivered What was it about darkness thatmade it so scary? she wondered

Something was moving in the undergrowth off to the left She could hear it quite

distinctly Fear prickled across her skin with a sudden feverish chill

What on earth had possessed her to come into this stupid wood in the middle of the stupidnight? She should have objected They could have done this during the day It would havebeen warmer for one thing Just because the other four were up for it, that didn't meanthey were right They had no evidence the murder had happened after dark so there was noreason to hold the seance after dark either

The shivering was momentarily vivid, a twitching shudder that seemed to run through herevery muscle What was she frightened of? she scolded herself She wasn't a child for God'ssake This was only a patch of trees and undergrowth and stuff She wouldn't have beenafraid to be here in the daylight and there was nothing here now that wasn't here then Afew bits and bobs that only came out in the dark perhaps, but nothing big

She found the urge to run was almost an ache, an itch inside the skull She told herself itwas just a race memory of predators that came for you in the night Somehow, she thought,

we all of us remember crouching, frozen in blind terror, as pitiless claws and teeth tore

at us And we know we've lost the light for ever And we know we will never see the sunrise again Something was moving in the under-growth off to the right now Chloe found shecould barely breathe

'Bloody rabbits make a racket don't they?' Tommy said softly

He was shorter than Chloe and though she couldn't actually see him in the suffocatingdarkness she still found his floppy-haired Hugh Grant impersonation reassuring -tall-

sounding and confident 'Is that what it is?' she gasped, trying not to sound too relievedand eager.'Rabbits?'

Off to one side Ralph said,'Could be badgers Fox maybe.' Ralph was taller and heavyset butthere was no immediate comfort to be taken from his dour and plodding presence

Somewhere close in front of her Meg snorted.'It's probably me,' she said 'I've got half amile of sodding brambles wrapped round my ankles here.' Chloe found Meg beautiful in asquare-faced ugly sort of way, and so much braver than she was herself

Joan said, 'It's most likely to be rats.' She was small and sharp-featured Chloe thought

of her as elfin, knowing that elves were reputed to be malicious as well as

delightful.'Rats are drawn to any place of death.'

'Only if the corpse is still there,' Ralph said witheringly

They're psychic,' Joan persisted Absolutely the most psychic of all animals Only we havegreater powers.'

'Absolutely the second most psychic of all animals then,' Tommy mocked

'I wouldn't care but these were my best chinos,' Meg complained

Sensible choice," Ralph said, 'given the circumstances.'

'Well frankly,' Meg said, 'I think wellies and jeans are a bit insensitive even for a

shit-shoveller Given the circumstances.'

It's waste management, Ralph said 'And it's only one part of the course.'

A binman by any other name&'

'Oh, sorry I'm not reading something useful like EastEnders and Emmerdalel

'Media.'

'A showbiz wannabe by any other name?' Tommy chipped in

'Don't you ever get tired of being a smart-arse?' Meg retorted

'What did you mean about wellies and jeans being insen-sitive?' Chloe asked, thinking ofthe boots and jeans she was wearing herself

'Show respect for the dead,' Meg said,'if you want them to show respect for you That's how

I was brought up.'

'Really?' Chloe said, unable to keep the surprise out of her voice She had never thought

of Meg as coming from a background of spiritualism

'No not really,' Meg giggled She leant in from the darkness to whisper and Chloe couldsmell the beer on her breath Come on Chloe, pay attention And stop taking everything so

bloody seriously It's just a laugh for God's sake.'

Ralph said, 'Look are we sure this is even in the right direction?'

Joan had been leading them down the narrow path and the others had followed her when shestepped off it and pushed her way through the undergrowth to a clearing where she had

stopped, obliging them to do the same They were standing uncertainly and unseeingly now,waiting for someone to take the lead

Joan said confidently, 'This was where she was murdered.'

Joan was always positive even when she wasn't, Chloe thought, and said, 'I can't see a

thing And my stupid torch has packed up.'

'The dead tree is over there.'Joan flashed her torch into the darkness, illuminating

nothing in particular 'We're standing in the clearing where he killed her Cant you feel

it? He filled this place with his evil Can't you feel his malevolence? Can't you feel the

residual fear? The place is full of horror

Chloe could feel it Joan was right It was like a nightmare you had woken from but couldn'tquite shake off This must be where he killed her She could feel the terror

We don't know the killer was a man,' Ralph said

Yeah right Meg said scornfully It's mostly women who beat women to death

'The victim was a girl Ralph said, not a woman And I thought the identity of the killer

was one of the things we were here to try and find out

Tommy sniggered Maybe we should ask the psychic rats, presumably they'd know How about itJoan? Any good with rodents?'

'If you weren't going to be serious about this,' Joan hissed, you shouldn't have come with

us.'

I see,' Tommy said What you mean is when it doesn't work it's going to be my fault, is

that it?

That's it exactly, she said

It couldn't possibly be _)*>«/" fault.'

One sceptical presence is all it takes to break the circuit and block the contact.'

If you say so

T do sa1* so Joan snapped And if I'm acting as medium, then what I say goes tonight all

right? Or do you want to take over the seance Tommy? Well do you?'

'No.'

'So what I say goes?'

So what you say goes, he conceded in a bored voice

A breeze stirred the unseen trees around them Chloe noticed that the sound it made wasweirdly human, a sort of bronchial moan, almost a wheezing The temperature seemed to bedropping rapidly Is it getting colder? she asked

'Are we going to do this or what?' Ralph demanded

'Link hands,'Joan said.'Form the circle.'

Chloe was glad of the excuse for physical contact She was getting the oddest feeling thatthey were being watched, that something was watching them from the darkness She reachedout as they groped for each other's hands Or was it someone? Was someone watching them?Was it him? Could it be that the murderer was here and he was watching them? Weren'tmurderers supposed to come back to the scene of the crime? She snatched at Ralph's andTommy's extended hands and clung on grimly

Are you OK, Chloe? Tommy asked

Just cold,' she said, but in truth she could feel the watcher now and she knew he was

watching her and her alone The murderer was focusing on her and she knew she would be hisnext victim

Chloe,' she heard a distant voice whisper and wheeze Chloe.'

'Don't do that,' she protested angrily 'It's not funny I'm scared enough as it is."

Leave her alone, Meg muttered Stop teasing her,you two.'

'I didn't do anything,' Tommy said

Ralph said, Neither did I.'

Well one of you's playing silly buggers.'

"Shut up and concentrate,' Joan commanded 'All of you I cant do this on my own Clearyour minds Concentrate on her Think only of the dead girl Just her We call her to us

through the focus of our collective will.'

His focus, his will, was calling to her, Chloe thought.'Chloe,' he breathed.'Chloe.' She

concentrated on the hands she was holding She closed her eyes against the darkness.Chloe,' the whisper said and she could hear the cruel smile in it

With the circle settled and silent Joan began to chant softly Come to us, come to us, come

to us who call you, come to us, come to us, come to us who love you, come to us, come to

us, come to us, come to us, come to us, come to us now:

Once the chant had been established the other three joined in 'Come to us,.come to us,come to us, come to us, come to us, come to us now:

Repetition, Chloe thought, as she too began muttering the pointless words, that's all it

takes The steady rhythm to make the trance, to make the magic, to make the music Therhythmic beat is like steady running 'Come to us, come to us, come to us.' Running keeps

us from the slavering teeth and the scrabbling claws 'Come to us come to us come to uscome to us.' It amplifies the tune of the blood so you can feel its power It keeps beatingback the darkness and the sounds of the darkness It was working She could feel it

working The rhythm reaches into us and we have the power to see, we have the power toknow, we have the power to control Come to us come to us come to us come to us: She feltstronger She felt the summons tugging at the dead girl, pulling her to them, pulling her

back across the void It was working She was coming

It was then Chloe heard the howl of pain and anger, and she opened her eyes The wind hadwhipped up suddenly, lashing the trees and swirling dead leaves and bracken fronds aroundthem The thick, blind gloom of the wood had lightened and in the unearthly glimmer she sawthe killer crashing through the undergrowth towards them He looked monstrous, tall andwild, and he ran in huge strides, lifting his legs high like a triple jumper His face was

twisted with hate His fury was insane He was coming straight at her He was coming

straight for her.

Frozen with fear, Chloe closed her eyes again tightly and tried not to scream He was a

ghost He was a demon He was a figment of her imagination He wasn't real He couldn't bereal 'Come to us come to us come to us come to us.' She raised her voice in the chant,

doing her best to block out the sound of him 'Come to us come to us come to us come to us!But above her own voice and the chanting of the others she could hear now words in the

howling

'listen to me! Listen to me you little bitch!' the killer was raging 'You will listen to

me and do as I tell you! You will do as I tell you, you little bitch!' Something struck her

on the shoulder and thumped against her back and she lurched forward stumbling into theothers, struggling to keep her balance and stay on her feet The chant became ragged andthen stopped abruptly

'Oh for God's sake Chloe,' Tommy said,'what is the matter with you!'

Chloe what's wrong? Are you in pain?'Joan said

'Are you all right?' Ralph said

What happened, Chloe?' Meg asked

And then close to Chloe something unseen grunted and roared A whisper in her ear echoed inthe bones of her head 'Die,' it said 'Die for ever in my darkness, bitch.'

Chloe lost all chance of control She broke the circle, pushed the others aside and ran

Raw panic drove her on and gave her unexpected strength and speed She plunged throughpatches of scrub, cannoned into small trees and blundered into low branches, but she keptgoing The glim-mer of light had vanished completely and the darkness was impenetrableagain, but it made no difference to her She ran flat out with no sense of direction and nothought of obstacles or barriers Only the demon striding and leaping behind her was real.Then abruptly she weakened, and as she weakened she began to trip over roots and stumble asher feet caught in the tangles of ground creepers She fell Suddenly her legs were achingunbearably and she was very tired, but she scrambled up and shambled on She fell again,harder this time, collapsing and sprawling headlong into the under-growth This time she

just wanted to lie there where she had fallen but she heard the demon coming for her Sheheard him crashing and roaring, closer and closer, louder and louder She heard him

shouting her name and she dragged herself upright and ran on She ran desperately until herbreath was rasping in her throat and filling her ears with its sound, but behind her she

could still hear the killer rushing and laughing and raging

The darkness was unrelenting and she was exhausted, terrified, lost Suddenly she wanted tolook back She wanted to see it She knew the light was there and she wanted to see

something, anything She wanted to put an end to the blind fear But she knew her death wasthere, ready to snatch her if she looked She knew it was ready to swallow her being if shelistened and it was calling to her constantly now.'Chloe? Chloe!' Now a woman's voice in

the distance, now a man's 'Chloee! Chlooeee?' And now it whispered to her 'Die,' it

gloated, so close it seemed to be inside her head 'Die in darkness, bitch!'

It was all around her, near and far, outside and inside 'Chlooooeeee!' It was mocking her,sneering, leering She must not look back no matter how much she wanted to She must notstop running no matter how much she wanted to She must get out of the wood She must getout of the darkness

Without warning the black blankness ahead of her thinned and clotted into patterns of

lighter and darker shapes She glimpsed momentary specks of brightness like sparks from afire Almost without realising it she crashed into the bram-bles at the edge of the wood,

ripped through them, plunged down through an empty ditch and found herself in open pasture

Clear of the ancient gloom under the trees it was possible to tell the sky from the ground,and in the distance she could see the lights of the University of East Wessex She

staggered a few paces further into the field Relief dragged at her, draining what little

strength she had left She sank to her knees on the damp grass and sobbed for breath Shecould see the lights of safety there across the open fields She knew the way back She'dbeaten it, him, whatever it was - ghost, demon, murderer Whatever it was she'd beaten it.'You think so?' It was a whisper and was followed immedi-ately by cackles and hoots of

savage laughter that seemed to surround and buffet her 'You can't run from me, you stupidbitch.' It was an agony in her skull like the burning ice of a migraine attack She pushed

herself upright

'Chlooee!' Behind her the voices were back She looked Small lights danced in the wood,calling her name She turned and fled, running for the safety of the campus She ran acrossthe open fields without looking back, without listening to the voices in the wood or in her

head Her only purpose was to reach the stockade of light and brightness in the middle ofthe endless plains of darkness

She was still running when she woke with a start in her study bedroom in the student hall

of residence Daylight was bright behind the curtains Someone was banging on the door Allthe unreal terror and insane confusion of the night before vanished It was a dream, she

thought, just a stupid dream Something must have disagreed with her Something had screwedwith her brain chemistry, big time She tried to remember what she had been doing the

evening before Had there been a party?

There was more knocking on the door 'Chloe? It's me Meg Are you in there?'

Just a minute,' she mumbled

She got out of bed She was naked She slept that way for comfort though there was also anelement of vanity since she was proud of her slim body and pale, unblemished skin

It was as she was looking for her bathrobe that she realised her hands and face were

scratched and she was covered in developing bruises

The Doctor was frowning at the control console "There's a reason for everything,' he

remarked The TARDIS had just spun off the time line and was moving motionlessly across thetransdimensional direction loops towards an undiffer-entiated focal point It left the

Doctor with little idea of when they might be going and where, and the more the TARDIS

manoeuvred the less idea he had.You start knowing nothing and end up knowing less, hethought, there's a lesson there somewhere All he could be sure about was that wherever andwhenever it was going to be, it was going to be soon; and that the TARDIS would have somereason for doing what it was doing 'That's not the same as a purpose of course,' he went

on 'People often confuse reason and purpose A reason is simply an explanation And

everything has an explanation.' Not for the first time he had a passing urge to thump the

control console in frustration

Leela had recognised all the signs She had been carefully observing the movements, whichwere not proper move-ments, and the sounds, which were more like feelings, that the TARDISsometimes made and the Doctor's reaction to them What was happening at the momentsuggested to her that the TARDIS was again about to stop, or drop, or whatever it was it

did before she and the Doctor were able to go outside Experience made her equally certainthat the Doctor would have no idea what they would be facing when they opened the doors ofwhat she used to think of as the travelling hut 'So what is a purpose?' she asked,

checking that her knife was securely sheathed and making sure the small travelling pouchshe had added to her belt still contained a selection of essentials, among them a

sharpening stone, a high-energy food bar and a comb Of course she knew now that the TARDISwas a very large non-travelling hut inside a much smaller, travelling box Everything had

an explanation Time And Relative Dimensions In Space, TARDIS, was the explanation of thehut-in-the-box and one day she would understand it, she was sure

What?' the Doctor said vaguely, not taking his eyes from the console's unhelpful telltales.

It was slightly shaming, he was thinking, that he had so little actual control He should

have paid more attention At the very least he should have got out some manuals at somestage and tinkered a bit A bit more It wasn't as if he could take the systems back to themanufacturer for an overhaul If something needed doing he would have to do it himself

Something did need doing, of course, and it was irritating that he didn't know what it was.Thumping the control console would clearly be stupid Kicking it was quite appealing too.While he was thinking this he suddenly became conscious that Leela was watching him

intently She was trying to look casual about it but there was no disguising her attention.Unconsciously she had also taken up the first stage of her preparing-to-fight stance Her

weight was slightly forward on the balls of her feet, her hand was on the hilt of the large

knife he could not persuade her to give up carrying She obviously sensed that somethingwas about to happen It was interesting, he thought, how sensitive she was becoming to theway the TARDIS func-tioned It was a pity aggression was always her first response to theunknown, but her early conditioning as a warrior had been thorough and counteracting it

would take more time and patience than he presently had

Leela had recognised other unrelated signs Her growing experience of the Doctor suggested

he was in one of his dark moods and she was sure that the longer he kept glaring at the

controls of the TARDIS the more irritated and unreasonable he would become From time totime she had heard him talking to the machine as if it was a friend and that had been

peculiar enough, but offering it personal insults and threatening it was mad and that

looked to be what he was once more about to do All shamans were mad, she reminded herself,that was the nature of their magic, or else they were fakes The Doctor said they were both

- mad and fake He got angry if she suggested he was a shaman He never saw it as a

compliment to his powers, only as an insult to his mind and his honesty She rememberedwhen the tribal shaman had gone truly mad There was no magic then There had only beendanger for everyone and death for him But there was an explanation if you thought about

it, and there were ways to lighten the Doctor's mood if you knew what interested him 'If areason is simply an explanation,' she said,'what is a purpose?'

The Doctor said, 'I've often wondered that myself,' and smiled his sudden, dangerous

smile.'Perhaps there isn't a purpose Or perhaps when we know all the reasons we'll knowthe purpose Or perhaps that is the purpose: to know all the reasons.'

'I am sorry I asked,' Leela said 'You are making fun of me.'

'Never,' the Doctor said emphatically, but still smiling 'I never make fun of you for

asking questions Even ones I can't answer.'

'But you do get angry'

'No I am patience personified You should know that by now.'

The TARDIS narrowed the multiverse options, gradually slipping towards the asymmetricalanomaly that was attract-ing it and pulling it towards a choice

'Very well Do you know where we are going then?' Leela asked

That is not a question,' the Doctor said "That is a deliberate provocation.' He looked

around for his hat

Leela said,'Your hat is in the pocket of your coat.'

'I doubt that,' the Doctor said, finding it in the left-hand pocket of his long overcoat

almost immediately and pulling it out I wasn't looking for my hat as it happens.'

'Your jelly babies are in the other pocket,' Leela offered

'Now you are beginning to annoy me.' The Doctor's smile was losing some of its spontaneity.The TARDIS coalesced all the remaining chances into one inevitability, ground towards it,

settled into it and, satisfied with its efforts to reach a balance, unlinked itself from

the probability grids As the systems disengaged the central column of the control consoledrifted calmly down to a stop

The Doctor reached for the switch which, Leela knew, would turn on the observation screenand show them what was outside 'Are we where you think we are?' she asked innocently.'I think so,' the Doctor said

'And that is where?' she prompted

'Here,' the Doctor said

'There you see,' Leela said triumphantly 'You said you would not make fun of me for askingquestions and you are making fun of me for asking questions.' She knew it was not really

worthy of a warrior, but she had found that she relished such small victories The Doctor

talked so much more fluently than she did He knew so much more than she did and he made noattempt at all to hide it from her Sometimes it had made her angry though this was not

such a time

'You were trying to make me angry,' he said reasonably 'To prove a point A rather

pointless point as you'd see if you thought about it reasonably.'

Leela shrugged.'You do not know what I was trying to do.'

The Doctor flicked the switch and looked at the obser-vation screen 'You think not?' He

was grinning wolfishly now

'You do not know everything,' Leela went on

'Of course not,' the Doctor said cheerfully.'So you can stop sulking, can't you.'

'I am not sulking,' Leela said, sounding sulky even to herself

'Look.' The Doctor nodded towards the screen 'Here's a particularly frustrating example ofwhat I don't know.'

The on-screen field of vision was slowly widening to show that the TARDIS had fetched up in

a wood of some kind Beyond the thickets of silver birch and elm scrub inter-spersed with

mature oak trees, a cluster of glass and metal buildings could be seen in the distance Thelow, square towers and black, shiny blocks looked new and carefully proportioned but stillthey stood out starkly in a wide landscape of long hedgerows and scattered islands of oldbroad-leaved trees

I don't know where we are,' the Doctor said

Leela stared hard at the screen, scanning the undergrowth for predators

Chapter Two

They were walking past the parapsychology laboratory when John Finer, physicist and one ofthe more respected of the younger professors in the University of East Wessex, suddenlyspoke.'Charlatan?' he said loudly, as though in the middle of a conversation 'No, I

wouldn't say the man's a charlatan.' Then he scowled, squeezing the habitual half-smile

from his long, narrow face.'To call Hitchins a charlatan would be a gross insult to

charlatans everywhere.'

Bill Parnaby, philosopher and a friend despite their funda-mental disagreements on almosteverything, shook his head sadly.'Childish or what?'

Finer looked down at the small, dark man beside him and raised an eyebrow 'Childlikeperhaps.'

Parnaby shook his head more vigorously, and said with mock disdain, 'It was childish Whydidn't you just bang on his lab door and run away?'

Finer smiled 'I would have done but he'd probably have included that in his poltergeistdata.'

Parnaby chortled, unable to suppress his amusement any longer 'Is it possible,' he

suggested, 'that you might be the teeniest bit envious?'

'Of?'

'The Kellerfield Research Fellowship.'

'The science of "things that go bump in the night"? Oh please.' It was Finer's turn to bedisdainful, though in his case it was genuine 'Credit me with a little more taste if notintegrity'

'I'm glad to see you're not depressed anyway,' Parnaby commented

Depressed?' Finer frowned.'Why should I be depressed?'

'It's reading week.'

'So?'

Parnaby shrugged a small, slightly embarrassed shrug 'I've noticed you tend to get a bitwithdrawn around this time of year.'

Finer looked surprised 'I do?'

'A touch of seasonal affective disorder perhaps?'

'Maybe reading week gives me time to think about the waste of resources in general and ourfriend Hitchins in particular That's enough to depress anybody'

They had reached the tiny room which Parnaby had been allocated by office administrationwith, as he told it, a rather dismissive: you're a thinker for God's sake, how much space

do you need anyway? Parnaby unlocked the door 'I'm told his funding is particularly

generous,' he said 'No converted cupboards for the Kellerfield Research Fellow'

'Now who's being envious?' Finer asked, following him in and flopping down in the morecomfortable of the two small armchairs which took up all the space not occupied by anuntidy desk and some overstacked book shelves

'I make no secret of it,' Parnaby said.'I would kill for a study like he's got and enoughmoney not to have to do any more popcorn lectures on piffle like time travel and the

paradoxes thereof.'

'You love it,' Finer scoffed

'This is not what I was led to expect from academic life in general and my academic life inparticular,' Parnaby sighed, rooting through precarious stacks of paper

'What you mean is,' Finer was grinning,'nobody told you it was going to be this much fun.'

Parnaby did not look up from his search 'Define fun.'

'Playing the wild man of philosophy for all those impres-sionable young females? You don'tget them queuing to hear my lectures.'

'If your next observation is that philosophy is the new rock-and-roll I shall throw up that

meagre and revolting lunch you just bought me.'

Finer did his best to look hurt "The Developmental Engineering Department's not short offunds, but our spon-sors demand detailed accounts and they frown on frivolity.'

'You mean you're going to charge it to expenses?' Parnaby found the notes for his

forthcoming lecture on the impos-sibility of time travel and proffered them Have I

mentioned that you're the stereotypical mean Yorkshireman?'

On a number of occasions.' Finer got up from the chair and accepted the lecture notes

without smiling 'Thanks for these I'm interested to understand your reasoning.'

'You could have come along and listened,' Parnaby suggested 'I do take questions from thefloor'

'I can't sit in your audiences,' Finer said I find all that screaming and seat-wetting

distracting I suppose it's inevitable though,' he smiled 'Philosophy being the new

rock-and-roll.'

They stood outside the TARDIS looking round at the wood and the pastures beyond The leaves

of some of the decid-uous trees were showing hints of yellows and reds There were blackfruits on the tangles of barbed creepers and shiny red seed pods on rambling thorn bushes.Everything was bathed in cool, early autumn sunshine which cast light shadows and deepenedand enriched the pale colours of the ripe meadow grasses in the nearby fields The Doctorwas entranced 'This is Earth,' he said beaming delightedly 'I like this planet, it's one

of my absolute favourites.'

'Are you sure?' Leela asked 'You said you did not know where we were.' She was still

watching and listening for predators but apart from the small scuttlings and twitterings

that would be expected in a place like this she had heard nothing, and all she had seen

were tiny, timid flyers and small, nervous tree-climbers Although she knew there were

always larger creatures that fed on such smaller ones there was no sign of anything big andthreatening in the imme-diate area

That was before I smelt the air and felt the sun,' the Doctor said

Leela frowned 'We are standing in the shade.'

The Doctor ignored the contradiction And look,' he said, gesturing towards the bushes,

blackberries and rose hips.' He pointed up at the trees.'Finches and squirrels We are inthe northern temperate zone.' He strode to one of the bushes and picked a fat blackberryheavy with juice 'And the autumn is just beginning A magical time.' He ate the berry withlip-smacking relish 'Try some of these They're almost as good as jelly babies.'

Leela shook her head I do not like jelly babies,' she said

'I promise you they're not poisonous,' the Doctor said, picking more 'Trust me, I'm the

Doctor.'

'I trust you, Doctor,' Leela said, making no move to join him but looking instead towards

the distant buildings 'Are we going there?'

'A pleasant walk in the afternoon sunshine?' The Doctor smiled.'I think so.'

'If you know where we are, do you know what it is?'

I haven't a clue But that's half the fun of it wouldn't you say?' the Doctor said, and

before Leela could speak he went on,'No you wouldn't, I know.'

Shall we go then?' Leela suggested, frowning 'We do not know how soon the darkness willcome.'

'Soon.' The Doctor ate another blackberry and stared thoughtfully into the middle distance.Making up his mind he said,'There's something I need to do first.' He went back to the

TARDIS 'I'll only be a moment,' he told Leela as she moved to follow him

Leela scowled 'You forget how much time passes.'

'I'll be quick, I promise.'

'Such promises mean nothing,' Leela sulked, 'and you are never quick.'

'Wait out here and keep watch.'

'This is not a good place.'

The Doctor smiled 'This is the only place,' he said enig-matically, and went inside

He crossed to the console and examined the telltales again There had been something verypositive about the way the TARDIS had come here, something that was not really reflected inwhat he had seen outside He might not know exactly how to fix her but he knew her moodsand music intimately She had come here as though this was the only place she could be Thequestion was why? The answer was probably unfathomable, but sometimes it was possible toget an idea of what might be happening from the time it took the console indicators to

reset themselves

He checked them all carefully Only one was out of phase The time-line flux adjuster

showed a very small residual overlap The temporal anomaly was fading fast but it was

there Somewhere close by, the Doctor realised, there must be a tiny fault in the fabric ofthe multiverse 'Well spotted, old thing,' he said 'While we're here you can draw on the

auxiliary power banks,' as he talked he set the controls,'and use your probability

compensators to overlay that spot and strengthen that weakness.' He finished the

adjustments and pressed the switch 'A stitch in time,' he said, 'saves& something or

another.'

Stepping out of the TARDIS he said to Leela, What does a stitch in time save, do you know

at all?'

'No,' she said darkly.'I do not Can we go now?'

'Soon.' The Doctor was not quite ready to leave He wanted to be sure he had not

destabilised the TARDIS First I thought we should familiarise ourselves with our

surroundings.' He pointed to some small trees Those, for example Do you know what theyare?'

'Of course I do not,' Leela said 'How would I know? And why would I care? Can we go now?'

It could be important,' the Doctor said 'Someone might point them out to you and ask youabout them.'

As they finally set out across the pasture Leela's mood lightened a little 'I did not feel

comfortable there,' she remarked, glancing back at the trees 'And yet I could see no realthreat.'

The Doctor inclined his head slightly and shrugged.'It was simply a reaction to a new

place It's probably hormonal Your endocrine system responds to potential danger.'

'You are saying I fear new places.'

'It's perfectly normal,' the Doctor said, offhandedly.'In your case the warrior training

channels it into aggression.'

'You are saying my fear makes me ready to fight.' For once Leela did not react aggressively

to being patronised That was not why I felt uneasy, Doctor,' she said 'It was not becausethe place was new to me I felt as if something was watching I felt as if something that

was not there was watching.You did not feel that.'

The Doctor said, not unkindly, 'You're letting your imag-ination run away with you.' And helengthened his stride so that Leela had to jog to keep up

Despite the hostility of his colleagues Barry Hitchins loved being the Kellerfield ResearchFellow in Parapsychology

It was not that he particularly loved the subject: he didn't From the beginning he was

privately very sceptical His attitude to telepathy, remote viewing over distance,

telekinesis, precognition and all the variations of ESP and mind power so beloved of dead science fiction hacks was not much different from that of the rest of the university

brain-He thought it unlikely that he would find evidence for any of it and if he did find

evidence it would probably have been faked

And as for ley lines, pyramid power, crop circles, standing stones, UFOs and all the wilderimaginings of the Internet conspiracy theorists: he was happy to leave that sort of

ludicrous nonsense to New Age throwbacks, credulous X Files fans and the like Psychics andparanormal manifesta-tions - or ghoulies and ghosties and long long-leggedy beasties andthings-that-go-bump-in-the-night as he thought of them - also left him unmoved and

unimpressed Clairvoyants and mediums, table-tappers, card-readers and fortune-tellers, thelist of BFTG - bullshit for the gullible -was apparently endless

But despite it all, despite his own reservations, despite the barely concealed contempt ofthose around him, despite the flaky weirdos he was forced to deal with on a regular basis -there was no getting around the fact that he really did enjoy the work He enjoyed it evenmore than he had expected to

You're late,' he said mildly as the two students wandered into the laboratory

'Sorry,' Tommy Carmodie said, smiling offhandedly and pushing the floppy hair back from hisforehead 'Haven't got a watch any more Had to pawn it unfortunately.'

'Me too,' Josh Randall murmured 'Student poverty gets worse by the hour As far as I cantell without a watch of course.' Josh was the taller of the two and shaven-headed

Unlike Tommy, who seemed to have modelled himself on Hugh Grant, Josh never made anyattempt to be charming It obviously did not concern him now, for example, that the watch

he was wearing was clearly visible

'What is it we're doing today?' Tommy asked 'I seem to have forgotten.'

At an interfaculty meeting not long after his appointment Barry Hitchins had expressed theview that his research was 'going to be more fun than women's heavyweight custard

wrestling Not blancmange wrestling, but then nothing comes close to that, as I'm sure

you'll all agree Especially if it's the pink blancmange.' Bill Parnaby had laughed but he

had been the only one Everyone else had greeted the comments in frosty silence and Barryhad realised that to the label quack practitioner of a pseudoscience he had just managed to

add stupid sexist moron It had been a dumb thing to say, but he had been nervous and hetended to say dumb things when he was nervous It was no excuse of course After all, hehad degrees in sociology and psychology - not good ones it was true, not as good as heclaimed anyway - but they should at least have equipped him to know better than to wade onthrough the custard and blancmange Up until then he had felt that you mostly knew morethan you learnt, but he realised afterwards that the opposite was certainly true.

'I want to run a continuation of the series on short-range telepathy,' he said 'You're in

the number one capsule, Tommy.You're in the number four,Josh.'

The two young men turned towards the line of four white-painted, fibreglass cubicles, eachone domed, almost egg-shaped, and about the size of a small shower unit

'You don't trust us,'Josh said, matter-of-factly

Tommy pantomimed surprise, said,'I hadn't forgotten had I?' and did his best to look

wounded.'You didn't tell us I have to say that's very hurtful I thought we were supposed

to be a team here? Boldly going and all that sort of thing.'

Josh nodded 'How are we supposed to get these things right if you don't give us any

advance warning? We've bugged the wrong capsules now, we've practised the wrong codes,we're totally screwed.'

'We've wasted a lot of time,' Tommy agreed 'I don't know how much because I can't afford awatch any more The thing is, though, you don't seem to be taking this whole thing nearly

as seriously as we do.'

It was a disappointment to Barry Hitchins to know that one gaffe bad probably cost him thechance of ever parlaying the research fellowship up to full professor with a department ofhis own But once he had accepted the situation, he found that the abandonment of ambitionwas oddly liberating If he was never to be respected or respectable then he was free toindulge, metaphorically speaking, in whatever custard-wrestling took his fancy

On one notable occasion he had amused himself by publicly confirming that a popular reader and metal-bending conjuror, who claimed among other things to have been trained byIsraeli intelligence as a psychic weapon, might well have genuine paranormal gifts Aninvitation to come to the university to have the telepathy and spoon-bending tested undercontrolled conditions was readily accepted by the entertainer Of course the invita-tionwas never taken up, but by then she and Barry had already got plenty of valuable publicity

mind-On another occasion he had investigated a poltergeist that was supposedly plaguing asuburban semi The rest-less spirit was moving furniture, tossing ornaments about andslamming doors Barry revealed it to be a fairly crude hoax It turned out that the

householder had planned the whole thing because he wanted to get on to daytime

television, and though he succeeded in this, Con men and those who expose them' wasprobably not the fifteen minutes of fame he'd had in mind The episode did Barry Hitchins

no harm however Now known as 'Ghostbuster Bazzer' he was well on his way to becoming aminor media celebrity This further irritated his colleagues which, as far as he was

concerned, was a major plus

Barry had calculated that it would only take one more reasonably high-profile opportunity

to demonstrate his expertise in the field of the supernatural and he could make the jump tofull media pundit, which would more than compensate for not being a full professor He was

in the process of devising such an opportunity - it involved a haunted vicarage and a

particularly spectacular headless spook - when he received an unexpected and rather

sinister note warning him that his funding was going to be at risk unless he paid moreattention to researching the accepted areas of serious parapsychology

It's the usual card-reading,' he said 'Tommy you're reading and sending Turn the cards on

the light cue You won't be getting any sort of cue, Josh I want you to call out the cards

when you think they've been turned.'

'Wait a minute 'Josh stopped and turned back to stare at him 'Wait a minute Not only do

I have to guess what the card is, I have to guess when it's turned over?'

'Problem?'

'Why the new variable?'

'A small extra pressure, nothing more.'

The point being?'

'The point being,' Tommy interrupted, opening the thickly padded door to the number onecapsule, 'he really doesn't trust us He thinks we really might have a code or something.''And you think a "small extra pressure" would stop that?' Josh challenged 'Why not go thewhole hog? Do you want me to drink a glass of water and recite the alphabet back-wardswhile I'm waiting for the cards to be turned? Or would you prefer a gottle o' geer?'

At first Barry thought it must be some sort of joke: what passed for wry humour among themore bitter of his academic associates The accepted areas of serious parapsychology?Accepted by whom he wondered And serious parapsychology? Surely the whole point was thatparapsychology was not taken seriously by anyone who mattered And then it had struck him

in a shocking flash of the blindingly obvious Presumably whoever it was who had endowedthe research fellowship did take it seriously, and they mattered because presumably theywere in a position, a very real position, to cut off his funding And he realised how much

he had come to rely on being Dr Barry Hitchins, the Kellerfield Research Fellow in

Parapsychology As a title 'Ghostbuster Bazzer' was never going to be an acceptable

substitute

'Shall we just get into the capsules and put the headphones on?' he suggested patiently.'Prompting paranoid fantasies wasn't quite what I had in mind.'

With a token show of reluctance the two students opened the designated units and climbed

in The four isolation capsules stood in a line along one wall of the laboratory Apart

from elaborately quarantined air filtration they were designed to be self-contained and

virtually soundproof They were lightproof, too, and their individual circuits, both

elec-trical and electronic, were heavily shielded Even though all the capsules were

completely separated from each other, when two were in use as now, it was still standardoperating procedure to have at least one empty one between the occupied units

While Tommy and Josh closed themselves into number one and number four, Barry took up hisposition in the small control and monitoring suite at the other end of the room From here

he could communicate with the capsules, and see and record everything that went on in themvia multiple CCTV cameras that covered every possible angle and position

Research using people as experimental subjects was always difficult to frame

satisfactorily, but a study involving them and elements of the supernatural made it almostimpossible Such work seemed to bring out the gullible and the deliberate cheats in morethan average numbers Barry recognised that, at its most innocent, this was because peoplewanted to believe and would lie to themselves to make it true After lying to yourself,

lying to someone like him was hardly lying at all People saw what they expected to see andexpected what they wanted to see

At its least innocent, his feeling was that the world was full of self-serving scumbags whowouldn't know the truth if it bit them in the arse, and he went to elaborate lengths to

spot and eliminate their scumbaggery

As he powered up the cameras, set the capsule light levels and activated the mic in numberfour Barry was sure he had designed out all the chances to fake the results He was sure,but he wasn't confident He could never escape the nagging feeling that he was somehowbeing manipulated He set the bank of video recorders running, put his headphones on andprepared to give Tommy the light signal that would cue the first card turn.

'Mr Bun the Baker,' Josh said solemnly, staring into the camera 'I'm right aren't I? I cansee it as clear as day'

After the first rush of guilty panic had subsided it had struck Barry as unlikely that an

anonymous note in the internal mail would have come directly from the funder His initialidea that it was a sour joke seemed more probable but he felt it was still a timely

reminder, a

wake-up call, even what he had once heard referred to as 'an wake-updated reality check'

If there was an element of overreaction in Barry's response it was understandable because

up until then his benefactor had remained uncommunicative Whoever provided all the fundinghad played no part in his recruitment and had offered no comment on his appoint-ment WhenBarry thought about it, which wasn't often, he assumed there were legitimate reasons forsuch reticence He had no real idea what they might be, and the truth was he didn't muchcare, but he didn't see it as sinister

Since the competition for academic funding of any kind was so cut-throat, the universityfor its part had been willing to accept a general definition of the field of study and

complete donor confidentiality as conditions of the endowment The feeling was that moneyencouraged money and, providing the Kellerfield Research Fellow conducted himself in ascientifically respectable way, the appearance of being well-funded would attract fundingand this could only help in the development of the academic standing of the University ofEast Wessex

But joke or genuine threat, whatever the source and seri-ousness of the warning, the notehad a profound effect on Barry Hitchins'approach to his research He now shunned publicityand turned down all the media opportunities that presented themselves He refined his testequipment and he worked to devise objective, repeatable experiments He resigned himself tothe hard grind of serious research, satisfied in his own mind that the most he could hope

to achieve was a reliable body of negative results

Then abruptly everything changed again when one of his routine test surveys of the studentbody produced several volunteers who appeared to show signs of paranormal gifts

'What a star I am,'Josh said.'I can see you're impressed.' He waved at the camera.'Come onwave Gottle 'o geer, gottle o geer! A definite star!'

Barry ignored him and flicked a switch on the control panel In the number one capsule thesignal bulb flashed and Tommy reached for the first card in a dealing shoe on the clearPerspex table in front of him The deck of cards was made up of an equal number of fivedifferent simple geo-metric shapes on plain backgrounds: a circle, a square, a pair of wavylines, a five-pointed star and a triangle The cards had been machine shuffled, placed inthe shoe and put on the table before Tommy entered the capsule He was strictly forbidden

to touch the cards, shoe or table until he was given the cue

He drew the card and lifted the star to show it to the camera, then he put it down on thetable and stared at the image In the number four capsule Josh yawned and said nothing.Barry waited until he was sure Josh had no idea the card had been turned and cued a seconddraw This time Tommy held up a card showing two wavy lines Josh was leaning back in thechair now and his eyes were closed Barry sighed to himself Josh was obviously in another

of his uncoopera-tive moods He switched on his own mic and said, 'Subject Josh Randallappears to be hostile to the experiment Perhaps he's been thrown by the additional

discipline though I'm not sure at the moment why this should be Examine the sequence up tothis point for clues to his behaviour.' He made a note of the time code.

In the capsule Josh said,'Have we started yet?'

'You obviously haven't,' Barry muttered and cued another card Again it was a star AgainJosh did not respond, then he said,'Bored with this game Let's play something else Snap?How about snap?' He nodded as if making up his mind

'Snap!'

Barry flicked the switch and Tommy drew another card showing a star Not even the randomshuffle seemed to have worked properly for this sequence It was clearly pointless to go

on He decided to abort the experiment

'Is there no end to their talent?' Josh chortled 'Well yes, there is actually.'

Barry switched on the speaker circuits to both the capsules

'And we're approaching it,'Josh continued,'about& now.'

'All right,' Barry said into his desk mic.'Thank you both Call that a day I think.'

As they emerged from the capsules Tommy asked, 'How many did we get right?'

'None,' Barry said

Josh was grinning.'What are the chances of that?' he said

'It's a spooky gift,' Tommy said solemnly

Barry shook his head 'I thought it was me that wasn't taking this seriously?'

'As long as you realise that,' Tommy agreed

'Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, cross,'Josh murmured, marking an imaginary exercise book

with elaborate flourishes.'Must try harder See me.'

Barry sighed.'Maybe we'll do better tomorrow,' he said

'Doubt that,'Josh said

'When shall we three meet again?' Tommy was smiling broadly 'Same time tomorrow is it?I'll borrow a watch.'

'The thing is,' Barry said, 'if you'd put some effort into this you might surprise

yourselves You might shake the world You could be on the cutting edge of research.'

'Whoah,' Josh feigned awe-struck amazement 'You don't mean we could&' he gulped

theatrically,'you don't mean we could& push the envelope?'

Irritated, Barry Hitchins turned off the capsule systems, checked the time codes on therecorders and turned them off Despite all his preparations and all his efforts he had

completely missed the significance of what he had just seen

Chapter Three

'It's a cow,' the Doctor said as Leela warily confronted the large Friesian blocking her

path "They are completely harmless herbivores,' he added, walking on through the herd.'Fully domesticated Selectively bred for meat and milk.'

The animal eyed Leela with mild curiosity 'Nothing that large,' Leela said,'is ever

completely harmless.' She put a hand out to stroke the cow and it swung its head to oneside and trotted away 'Nothing that large and that stupid is ever completely harmless.''I quite like cows,' the Doctor said when she caught up with him 'They've always struck me

as rather good-natured, all things considered.'

'Is there anything about this planet that you do not like?' she asked tetchily

'Is there anything about it you do like?' the Doctor countered.'So far?'

'No,' Leela said flatly "This is not a place I wish to be.'

'Well as long as you've given it every chance,' the Doctor said and smiled his vivid,

wolfish smile

But Leela was not to be diverted from her souring mood "There is something dangerous here

I can still feel it If you were not so pleased with this Earth place you would feel it

too It is&' she groped for the right expression, 'it is waiting everywhere.'

'As far as I remember,' the Doctor said, 'in this particular region there are no major

predators, no lethal insects, no poisonous arachnids, no seriously venomous snakes and theclimate is relatively benign.'

'Paradise?" Leela suggested, her voice full of angry scepticism I do not think so.'

'It's probably boredom,' the Doctor said 'Your warrior instinct is frustrated by the lack

of stimuli.'

Leela shook her head 'You do not understand what I am saying.'

You're saying you feel threatened,' the Doctor said And I am saying there is no threathere Unless you're scared of cows of course.' He grinned.'A lot of people are I believe.Especially girls?' But Leela remained grimly unmoved by the obvious teasing

They were close enough to the cluster of buildings now to be able to see that people werestrolling about in paved areas and sitting on the grass in open spaces Here and therethrough the grounds of the complex there were small fountains and ornamental lakes Thepeople looked for the most part to be young, and many had what could be books with them.Groups walked purposefully between the smoked glass blocks

'Do you know, I think that might be a university of some sort,' the Doctor remarked

cheerfully

Leela peered at the buildings suspiciously 'What is a university?'

The Doctor was searching the hedge for a gap through into the next field 'It's an

institution devoted to the preservation and pursuit of knowledge and the communication ofthat knowledge to those who want it.'

Leela unsheathed her knife and began chopping her way through the hedge 'Perhaps theypursue knowledge of the waiting danger'

'It's unlikely' said the Doctor.'Judging from the architecture they should have left

superstition and general unreason well behind them by now I imagine religion will havebeen consigned to the department of history.'

Leela stopped chopping at a stubborn blackthorn stem and glared back at the Doctor.! haveleft superstition and general unreason behind me.'

'Well behind,' the Doctor agreed.

'And I think of the religion of my tribe as his story,' she said And then, in response to

the Doctor's expression, added by way of explanation,'The shaman's story.'

The Doctor smiled 'It is a difficult thing to shake off,' he said.'The religion of your

tribe.'

Leela went back to hacking down the last obstacle to her free passage through the hedge.'You said all it took was reason and an open mind.'

The Doctor followed her through the gap I could be wrong,' he said.'One mustn't be

dogmatic about these things after all.'

'A demon chased you?'Josh sighed and ran a hand over his shaved scalp 'Oh purlease Whathave you been smoking? Get a grip, girl.'

'If she says that's what happened that's what happened, and she doesn't need to get a grip,bay! Meg said angrily

'So how come no one else saw it?'Josh looked round the table at the others 'You didn't seeanything did you?'

Chloe drained her glass It was me it wanted,' she said miserably 'Only me.'

'I can understand that,' Tommy said I feel the same way most of the time.' He reachedacross the table to touch her hand Without thinking she withdrew it It could almost havebeen a flinch 'Is it my round?' he said, looking towards the bar.'Unless someone can lend

me a beer coupon or two I'm afraid it's going to be a half of bitter and straws.'

'Why don't I find that as charming and appealing as you so obviously do?'Joan said withoutsmiling

Tommy pushed the hair back from his forehead 'Because you're a miserable bitch,' hesuggested mildly, and as cuddly an androgynous dwarf?'

Joan smiled sweetly Oh dear I was going to lend you money too.'

'No you weren't.'

'No I wasn't.'

'This demon,' Ralph said.'What did it want from you?'

'It wanted to kill me,' Chloe said She took a £10 note from her wallet and pushed it

across the table towards Tommy

'What's this?" he asked

'Your round,' she said and smiled

'All yes.' He took the money Same again everyone?' None of them noticed his unhappyexpression as he made his way to the bar

'Yes, but why?' Ralph asked

'We conjured it up,'Joan said It was drawn to that place of death and we gave it

substance.'

'That's exactly what you didn't do by the sound of it,' Josh said He sounded amused It

had no substance except in Clarrys mind.'

"Chloe,' Chloe said My name is Chloe.'

'Shit, sorry All this time I thought your name was Clarry.' He shook his head in mock

embarrassment "If you ask me,' he went on, you all trotted off into the woods, got

yourselves worked up with some occult play-acting, and then Clarry here had a Blair Witch

moment.'

I don't think we did ask you,'Joan said, did we?'

Unsmiling, Ralph said, "I think he's right though.'

Well there's a surprise,' Meg scoffed Binmen of the world unite, you have nothing to lose

but your rubbish.'

'We were all of us hyped up,' Ralph said.'It's not surprising that someone got&'

'Hysterical is the word you're looking for,'Josh said smiling

'It's not surprising that one of us girlies got hysterical,' Meg said, 'that's what you

mean isn't it? You might at least have the balls to come out and say it.'

'I may have imagined it,' Chloe said 'I thought it was the murderer but I may just have

been projecting my own fears back on myself.'

'What did it say to you exactly?'Josh asked He seemed to be interested despite himself

'It didn't say anything It was just howling hate-filled gibberish.'

'Not one of your more coherent demons then.'

'Whatever it was,' Chloe shuddered, 'it was horrifyingly insane Does that mean I am do you

think? Am I insane?'

YES!'the voice roared YOU'RE MAD AND YOU'RE DEAD!'

The shout was so deafening it made Chloe's jaw clench and her ears sing, and she knew

immediately that no one else would have heard it She looked round for some clue, some

possible link to the normality of the student union bar, but there was nothing Would it

come now, screaming and bellowing from the door, leaping and crashing into the window? She

could feel her chest constricting and compressing She panted, struggling to fill her lungs

with thin, unbreathable air Blood hammered in her eyes and rattled thickly in her ears

She grabbed the edge of the table and held on grimly This time she would not run This

time she would keep her nerve no matter what happened

'Are you all right, Clarry?'Josh was staring hard at her

IT'S NOT CLARRY IT'S CHLOE!' a voice shouted but she wasn't sure whether it was her voice

or the demon's The others were looking at her now Was it because they could hear the

voice?

'Chloe?' Meg reached towards her, but it seemed as if her arm was getting longer and longer

and she was getting further and further away.'Is it a panic attack?' Meg's distant voice

was full of concern 'Breathe slowly, Chloe Try to breathe slowly Deep slow breaths.'

BREATHE YOUR LAST BREATH,' the demon cackled ETERNITY IS AN AIRLESS AGONY OF PANIC!'Chloe's hands slipped off the edge of the table as she pushed herself to her feet She

would have fallen headlong if Ralph had not caught her and steadied her 'I must go,' shesaid, or whispered, or shouted She pulled free of his arms and ran for the door.

'RUN! RUN!' the voice exalted YOU CAN RUN BUT YOU CAN'T HIDE!'

Somewhere in the chaos of her panic Chloe heard Josh say: not one of your more coherentdemons then and thought: it shouts cliches too But it didn't stop her terror, and it

didn't stop her scramble to escape

Sobbing incoherently and half-blinded by tears she wrenched open the door to the bar andplunged out into the sunlight Almost immediately she cannoned into someone and fell on tothe hard paving stones of the small quadrangle Pain jagged through her knees and hands.'Are you all right?' a friendly voice inquired.'Don't try and move for a moment.'

Chloe peered up and saw a tall man dressed in a long coat, with a long scarf and a softfelt hat jammed over curly hair There was a girl dressed as some sort of primitive hunter-gatherer standing beside him

'What do you think, Leela?' the man said 'Any broken bones?' He squatted down on hishaunches and smiled at Chloe Despite the pain she felt more relaxed almost at once.'She will be bruised, nothing more,' the girl said without making any move to examine her.'How can you tell from there?' Chloe asked.'X-ray vision?'

'Leela's an expert,' the man said.'She was trained to break bones for a living No, I

phrased that badly She was trained to break bones to stay alive.'

'There's a difference?' Chloe asked as he helped her up

'The Doctor has never understood the way of the warrior,' the girl said

"The way of the warrior?' Chloe looked from the man to the girl and back again Is thisstreet theatre?' she asked, smiling

Barry finished cataloguing the tapes and filing his notes He completed the diary entry andthe experiment log and tabulated the predictable, if disappointing, results of the day's

test programme Then he yawned copiously, stretched his cramped shoulder muscles andscratched his crotch

'Nice manners,' the voice said from the doorway 'But I suppose that's to be expected fromGhostbuster Bazzer, the pusher of scientific envelopes.'

'Professor John Finer as I live and breathe,' Barry said, genuinely surprised to see thephysicist 'You forgot ventril-oquist, conjuror and children's party entertainer by the

'Is that your answer or your opinion?'

Barry nodded 'So what are you doing in here, Finer?' he asked, no longer bothering to keepthe anger out of his voice.'Aren't you afraid of catching some reputation-crashing virus?'Finer's smile broadened slightly into what looked like a sneer.'Stupidity by association isalways a danger.'

'As is respectability by association,' Barry sneered back 'So make your point and leave Iwouldn't want to get a reputation as an establishment poodle.'

'One of my students is not working to his potential because your& experiments; Finerstressed the word making it sound ludicrously inappropriate, 'are taking too much of hisattention.'

'Maybe your course is boring crap,' Barry snapped 'Maybe you're just not taking enough ofhis attention.'

'Josh Randall could be a talented engineer.' Finer's tone was pure contempt

Stung, Barry said, 'As in train-driver presumably?' and immediately felt stupid and petty.'You see,' Finer said loftily, 'that's the sort of ignorant prejudice developmental

engineering comes up against constantly'

'I can't imagine what coming up against ignorant prejudice must be like,' Barry remarked,hoping he sounded ironic rather than self-pitying

Finer scowled 'Finish what you're doing with Randall and let him get on with his real

work.'

'Consider it done.' This time Barry had no trouble sounding wry

'I mean it.' Finer poked a bony finger at Barry's face 'I'm not going to let you ruin this

kid.'

'Get out of the lab!' Barry felt the anger making his heart beat quicker and his breath getshorter

'You call this a lab?' sneered Finer

'I call this my lab,' Barry raged, and I advise you to get the hell out of it before I

forget that I'm an inoffensive academic and give my full attention to kicking your bony

arse!'

Finer bunched his fists and stared at Barry for a long moment as though considering whether

to fight him or not Finally he shook his head dismissively 'I shall never under-stand whythey let anyone like you on campus in the first place,' he said, and turned on his heel.'But I'll make it my business to have you thrown off it if you keep on the way you're

going!'

Barry followed him to the door of the laboratory and slammed it after him You arrogantpillock!' he shouted at the closed door.'You do right to run away,you& you chicken shit!'Then he locked and bolted the door just to be on the safe side and went back to his

workstation to think about ways to widen the focus of his experiments He would make Finereat his words, preferably written in large letters on something disgusting

The Doctor took a sip from the free sample of bottled water he had taken out of a

Clearspring Water Company adver-tising display and looked at the flyers stapled to thenotice board One in particular caught his attention.'If time travel were not impossible it

would be pointless - a lecture by Professor Bill Parnaby,' he read aloud He beamed down atLeela "That should be fun,' he said 'It's a couple of weeks away though What do you

think, shall we jump the TARDIS forward and go and argue with him?'

Leela finally managed to twist and flip open the dispenser nozzle on her bottle If you

could control the TARDIS in that way we would not be in this place,' she said reasonably,and squirted some of the water into her mouth

'Are you sure? Perhaps I would have brought us here anyway'

Why?'

'To discuss impossibilities with Professor Parnaby.'

But you did not know of this man until we came here.'

'That's true,' the Doctor nodded 'But I do know of him now So I might have brought us

here then And as you know, then and now are relative and interchangeable.'

Leela sighed 'You are making fun of me again.'

The Doctor grinned 'This may be our second visit, but we are doing it first.'

Beyond the university buildings the trees and hedges were darkening into silhouettes as thesun began to settle towards the horizon Shadow was reaching across the fields and seemed

to drift into the campus, dimming the colours in the small square where the Doctor and

Leela stood watching students coming and going

'It is getting dark,' Leela said, placing her hand briefly on the hilt of her knife

It was an unconscious gesture the Doctor had seen her make many times, and he took it to be

a reassurance reflex He remembered that an Earth cartoonist whose work he much admired hadcoined a term for something which offered such irrational comfort and he wondered ruefully

if a very large knife really qualified as a security blanket 'Late summer dusk,' he said,

trying to sound especially reassuring, 'is the time of peaceful beauty and quiet

contemplation here on this world.'

Leela said flatly, 'Darkness is the time of predators that do not need the light to see

what it is they are hunting Everywhere on any world.'

It occurred to the Doctor that if Leela was not being deliberately downbeat to make some

angry point of her own, then she was showing signs of incipient paranoia 'I think you're

doing it on purpose,' he said 'Since we got here nothing has happened to make you feel

threatened

You have no reason to be afraid.'

At the mention of fear Leela did not bristle with warrior pride the way the Doctor had

hoped There are always reasons to be afraid,' she said darkly 'The dark is one of them.'

As if in response to her words, automatic sensors reacted to the developing gloom and

lights began to switch on across the campus As well as the standard space lighting therewere low level floodlights which glowed gradually brighter round the ornamental lakes, andconcealed uplighters among the trees and shrubberies which exag-gerated shapes and madeelaborate patterns from the foliage

'I don't imagine this will lighten your mood?' the Doctor asked

Leela shrugged dismissively 'Some night predators are attracted to the light.'

Before the Doctor could voice his exasperation Chloe Pennick, the excitable girl who hadcannoned into them earlier, came out of the administration office and hurried across thesquare to where they were standing.

'I've checked the regulations,' she said eagerly "You're allowed to stage performances oncampus 'providing you belong to, or have been invited by, a bona fide student group" I canorganise that for you In the meantime I've booked you into the guest accommodation.'

'How very kind of you, Chloe.' The Doctor beamed 'I think we may be at cross-purposesthough.We weren't planning to stay Were we Leela?'

'I did not want to come here at all,' Leela said, touching the hilt of her knife.'This is a

bad place to be."

Chloe looked nervous suddenly She glanced from the Doctor to Leela and back to the Doctor

Do you really think so?' she asked, her voice full of apprehension

'No of course not,' the Doctor said 'I must apologise for

Leela She's been in a rather primitive mood ever since we arrived.'

Leela said flatly and ungraciously,'I do not like this place or anything about it.'

'Why not?' Chloe was staring hard at Leela as though she already knew the answer to thequestion and merely wanted confirmation

'There is danger,' Leela said

'Yes,' Chloe agreed.'I think so too.' She looked at the Doctor and nodded 'I think so

too,' she repeated

'And what do you think this danger is?' the Doctor asked, wondering if his understanding ofyoung women was even sketchier than he had thought

I am being pursued.'

'You are being hunted?' Leela asked

Chloe frowned 'In a way But it's more haunted than hunted,' she said Then she shruggedand smiled a small, embarrassed smile.'I suppose that sounds silly doesn't it?'

'When you say haunted&?' the Doctor prompted

'It's a sort of demon I think it might be the ghost of a serial killer?'

'Ah.' The Doctor did his best to look sympathetic because it seemed to him that the girlwas either a very good actress or she actually believed what she was saying Either way hefelt it was kinder to play along 'And it's following you - ?'

'Chasing me,' she interrupted

'Chasing you,' the Doctor corrected himself,'because&?'

'I don't know why'

'What does it look like?' Leela asked

Chloe frowned with concentration and then said, 'I don't really know that either I didn't

see it very well It was dark and&'

'You were afraid,' Leela said matter-of-factly.

'I was terrified,' Chloe agreed

'Fear will change what you see,' Leela remarked,'and create what you do not see That isone of the first things the warrior-trainers taught us.'

'If it isn't there,' Chole's eyes filled with tears, 'then I'm losing my mind.'

Since she had not reacted to Leela's references to tribal lore, the Doctor was still not

entirely sure whether Chloe was genuinely distraught or was merely playing along with whatshe thought was an impromptu theatrical performance 'What does it do, this demon of

yours?' he asked as patiently as he could.'How does it chase you exactly?'

Chloe hesitated 'It rushes towards me shouting and screaming threats,' she said 'It's

like it's in my head, like it's in my head& Oh God it sounds as though I'm hearing voices

possible she might be having a breakdown of some sort 'I tell you what.' He felt in his

coat pocket and pulled out the battered paper bag 'Why don't you have a jelly baby,' he

proffered the bag, 'and show us around this fine old seat of learning?'

Chloe peered at the bag A jelly baby?'

'I find them a great comfort in moments of stress.'

'Something to do with boosting blood sugar I expect,' she said, taking one 'So what wouldyou like to see of this fine old seat of learning?'

'We're in your hands,' the Doctor said, setting off imme-diately towards one of the bigger

smoked-glass and steel blocks.'What's that building there?'

'That's IT,' Chloe said, wiping the tears from her cheeks with the heel of her hand as she

hurried to catch up.'It's the largest department At least I think it's the largest My

friend Meg says developmental engineering has more money than you can shake a stick at.''What is IT?' asked Leela, who had anticipated the Doctor's abrupt move and was strollingbeside him

'Initial teaching?' the Doctor ventured

Chloe eased her way between them Information tech-nology,' she said

The Doctor was unfazed 'So that's what it's called now? I haven't been on a tour of a

university since Isaac Newton showed me around Cambridge That was before he was Sir Isaac,

of course He was a remarkable thinker He did have a tendency to paranoia though, and Ialways felt that fishing book was a mistake.'

Chloe giggled 'You're trying to convince me I'm losing my mind aren't you That was IsaacWalton, wasn't it? The Compleat A ngler?'

'No, no,' the Doctor said authoritatively 'Isaac Walton was a composer I'm sure you'll

find I'm right.'

Chloe was enjoying the game now.'William Walton was the composer.'

'Or am I thinking of Walton Hummer?' the Doctor mused

'Who's Walton Hummer?' Chloe asked

'You've never heard of Walton Hummer?'

'Should I have done?'

'You could hardly have avoided Walton Hummer,' the Doctor said Charming little fellow.Small, only about three feet tall, but perfectly formed He was a giant on the electronickazoo and his work on the wiffle-synthesiser was earthshaking If you've never heard of him

I must have got the dates confused This is obviously an earlier period than I imagined.'And he was about to explain the full significance of Walton Hummer to twenty-first-centurypopular music when Leela suddenly lengthened her stride and sidestepped in front of Chloe.'I thought you told me, Doctor,' she said quietly as she leant in close to him, 'never totell the people we meet too much about the way we have travelled.'

The Doctor smiled 'I'm just trying to cheer her up,' he murmured but he knew Leela wasright He was talking too much and he was slightly puzzled by that He didn't normallybabble like an idiot Was there something odd about this place after all?

'It's no good whispering you two,' Chloe said, smiling 'There are no secrets from me I'mChloe the Clairvoyant It's official I'm certified as gifted Dr Hitchins' tests show I

may not be as gifted as one or two of the others but I definitely have psi powers.'

'What are psi powers?' Leela asked

The Doctor stopped in his tracks.'Parapsychology?'he said 'Someone here's doing

experiments in parapsychology?'

'Dr Hitchins, Barry Hitchins, aka Ghostbuster Bazzer? You don't look as though that meansmuch to you.'

The Doctor shook his head 'It doesn't.'

'Psi powers are parapsychology then,' Leela said carefully

'He's famous,' Chloe said.'Well, quite famous He's been on TV and stuff.'

'Because of his experiments?'

'Mostly because of the research fellowship He's the Kellerfield Research Fellow in

Parapsychology There aren't a lot of those about.'

'I should hope not,' the Doctor remarked frowning

'You're another sceptic,' Chloe said.'There are a lot of those about At least around herethere are.'

'What is parapsychology?' Leela asked

"The point,' the Doctor went on, 'is that the experimental protocols are invariably wrong.The research is usually undertaken in the wrong way and for the wrong reasons, and theresults are almost always&'

'Wrong?' Chloe offered

'Wrong,' the Doctor agreed.

'You mean you believe in it?' Chloe seemed slightly incred-ulous You sound as though you

actually do believe in it.'

'There is an argument,' the Doctor said, sounding pompous even to himself, 'that says that

anything you can imagine must exist, otherwise it would not be possible for you to imagine

it You cannot imagine what cannot exist.'

'You told me there was no such thing as magic, Doctor,' Leela said angrily, and no such

thing as ghosts And when I told you I felt as if something in this place was watching,

something which was not there, you said it was my imag-ination You said it was my

imagination running away with me Now you say that if I can imagine it, it must be true.'

'That's not what I said, Leela,' the Doctor snapped 'What I said was -' and he realised

abruptly that it was indeed more or less what he had said 'What I should have said was:

it's just a way of thinking,' he said more gently 'Not a very useful way I tell you what

Why don't we go and have a chat with Dr Hitchins? Find out what he's doing.'

'What is parapsychology?' Leela asked again

'It's telepathy and remote viewing and precognition and stuff like that,' Chloe said,

waving her hands about in vague and unhelpful gestures 'Mental powers that aren't normal,

you know?'

Leela nodded 'I know,' she said 'like magic and the power to summon ghosts and see

demons.'

'Yes,' Chloe said That too I suppose.'

'Superstitious nonsense,' the Doctor said Magic, ghosts, demons, gods They're all just

names given by the ignorant and the frightened to phenomena they can't explain If only

people were not afraid of the unknown, ignorance would be a joy and curiosity would be the

best reason for living.' Even as he said it the Doctor noticed out of the corner of his eye

a spreading pool of darkness sliding smoothly across the ground, flowing like flat, black

water drowning the light An eddy of chilly air breathed and whispered round him and he

shivered With a conscious effort he turned to look directly at the dark and it dissolved

away into shadows and broken patterns of floodlit brightness As it vanished he thought he

heard a mocking voice sneer: 'If only people were not afraid of the unknown.'

'Who's there?' the Doctor almost shouted

'Who is where?' Leela asked, touching the hilt of her knife and peering in the direction

the Doctor was looking

'You didn't hear anything?' the Doctor asked

'What did you hear?' Chloe asked

'Fear,' the voice muttered Was he really hearing it? the Doctor wondered 'Fear.' Was it

distant or close? Was it real or imaginary? Was it in the world or in his head? 'Fear,' it

murmured 'Fear is the key that opens the door to where madness and hell wait I'll take

you there You'll never come back again You could be afraid for ever!

'Did you hear something, Doctor?' Leela asked

'BE AFRAID!' the voice suddenly bellowed and the Doctor knew that only he was hearing it

BE AFRAID YOU POMPOUS PRATING FOOL! I WILL STRIP YOUR MIND AND LEAVE YOU SHIVERING

IN THE

DARK!' Laughter cackled through his head

'Doctor?' Leela touched his arm.

No, nothing,' the Doctor said quickly 'Let's get on with it, shall we?'

Chapter Four

'Why is this shit always at night?'Josh asked scathingly

It focuses the mind,' Joan said There are fewer inputs, fewer distractions.'

'Yeah right,'Josh smirked.'Nothing to do with cheap thrills then.'

Joan uncovered the crystal ball on the low table 'Do you want to do this or not?' Sheswitched on a small, halogen desk lamp and adjusted the head so that the light shone intothe clear glass

'Since each of us had a personal invitation to your room,' Tommy said, testing the castors

on the Ouija-board pointer, 'and we knew nothing about anyone else, close contact with theliving rather than the dead was probably more in our minds.'

'Sex?' Joan's laughter was bell-bright and genuine, and all the more cruel for that.'Youthought I'd invited you here for sex? She looked directly at Josh 'Get a grip, wasn't thatthe phrase?'

Tommy placed the small arrow back in the start position on the Ouija board, with the pointset towards the centre of the elaborately drafted arc of letters 'Board and planchette are

go for contact,' he said, adding with a slight smile,'and as it happens I was going to turnyou down I don't want to be treated as a sex object.'

'I do,'Josh said, rubbing his hand backwards and forwards across his shaved head 'Butyou've definitely ruined your chances with me Not that you had a hell of a lot to beginwith.' He sat down on one of the floor cushions that had been placed by the table andnodded at the crystal ball 'What exactly do you expect to do with that?'

'It's an experiment,' Joan said 'You're not supposed to expect things are you?' She

switched on a second halogen lamp and moved it about minutely until she was satisfied thatthe Ouija board was properly illuminated

There was a tap at the door and Meg came in looking flushed and out of breath 'Sorry, am Ilate? Sorry.'

'Put the latch down will you,' Joan said, ignoring the apology

'You want me to lock it?' Meg asked

'And turn out the main light.'

'Are you sure we want to be locked in a dark room with these two?' Meg said

'My thought exactly,'Josh grunted

Tommy pushed his hair back from his forehead 'But if you both promise to keep your hands

to yourselves we'll risk it.'

'No risk at all, trust me,' Meg snorted

'My thought exactly,'Josh repeated

Meg locked the door 'Especially for him.' She turned off the light, made her way

uncertainly to the table and flopped down on to one of the cushions.

'Right.'Joan passed her hand over the crystal ball a couple of times.'Are we sitting

comfortably?'

'I hope we're not required to cross your palm with silver,' Tommy said

'You really should give up whining about being poor, Tommy,' Meg remarked She soundedirritable 'It's not very attractive.'

'I'll take your word for it,' Tommy murmured 'Not being attractive is your area of

expertise after all.'

Meg chortled abruptly 'Bitchy-ee You've been practising that haven't you?'

In the dimness outside the pool of light on the table Tommy smirked.'It never hurts to

rehearse.'

'Elizabeth Hurley obviously got the wrong Hugh Grant.'

'That's always been my opinion.'

'And hers as it turned out.'

Joan leant forward so that her face was in the brightness and glared first at Meg and then

at Tommy 'If you two want to work on a stand-up comedy routine -'

We're sitting down,' Tommy cut in, and Meg giggled

'- can you do it another time!'Joan ploughed on shrilly 'And Meg, why are you drunk, now

of all times?'

'Oh shut up, Joan,' Meg snapped.'You're not my mother.'

You knew we were going to do this! Joan accused

'Presumably she'll be more suggestible,'Josh said.'Alcohol's been used in this sort of

nonsense ritual since whoever it was invented God.'

'Perhaps we should all get drunk,'Joan said, still angry

Now that sounds like a plan; Tommy said

'Bar's closed; Josh said and reached forward to put his right index finger on the

planchette Is there anybody there?' he intoned

The little pointer rocked and twitched and started to roll towards the letters

'Oh my God, look at that; Meg whispered

The planchette reached the letter N, moved sideways to the letter O and then wobbled

uncertainly back to the start position where it came to rest Josh took his finger off it

'Oh dear,' he said flatly 'Nobody there Wasting our time it seems.'

'Very funny,'Joan said

Tommy snorted 'Funny? Oh come on, it wasn't a patch on our routine and you weren't

remotely amused by that.'

'All right,' Joan sighed 'All right Let's start again from the beginning Are we sitting

comfortably?'

'No,' the other three said, more or less in unison

"Then we'll begin Concentrate Focus.'Joan made upward stroking motions on either side ofthe crystal ball as though she was trying to gather imaginary vapours and breathe them in.'Focus Concentrate Now, each one of you put a finger on the planchette.'

Meg, Tommy and Josh did as they were told They were sitting on three sides of the table sothat no one person would be in a position to exert an undue influence over the movement ofthe pointer In theory at any rate, they cancelled each other out

'We are here to be guided,' Joan said in a slightly singsong voice 'We are here to seek

answers We are here in all humility to ask for your help and to ask for your wisdom.' Shepaused dramatically Slowly she laid her hands palms upwards on the table.'Can anybody hearus? Is there anybody there?'

On the Ouija board the pointer remained stubbornly unmoving

'We ask this in all humility: is there anybody there?' she repeated

Still the pointer remained static

After a moment or two she asked,'Do you feel anything?'

'Does stupid count?'Josh muttered

'Nothing,' Tommy said 'Not a quiver Perhaps we're press-ing too hard.'

Why won't you answer us?'Joan asked more loudly in her semichant

Abruptly the pointer began to move A-S-K-I-N-G R-O-N-G K-W-E-S-T-I-O-N was painstakinglyspelled out Did any of you do that? Joan asked quietly

Josh said 'Presumably we all did it.' Did anyone do it on purpose?'Joan persisted

Josh withdrew his hand No I didn't,' he said pointedly But you're not going to believe meare you.'

'You did it before.'

'I'll just watch this time then, OK?' He sat back from the table so that he was out of the

light What's the right question do you think?' Meg asked

Tommy said,'How about: where did you learn to spell? Are the dead dyslexic?'

'Who's there?'Josh suggested

This time the planchette jerked between the letters U D-O-N-T W-A-N-T N-O

'Yes we do,' Joan said 'We want to know who it is we're speaking to.'

The planchette remained stuck where it was

'Please tell us who you are?'Joan asked plaintively

'I command you to tell us your name,'Josh ordered

With a tiny jerk the pointer began rolling again D-E-D

Josh demanded,'Is that your name or your condition?'

When nothing happened Joan said,'Are you dead?'

U D-E-D U D-E-D U D-E-D

Meg yawned suddenly Well this is exciting My guess is we're in contact with a defunct

budgerigar Or possibly a dead tape recorder.'

'Maybe he's trying to tell us his name,' Tommy offered 'Uriah Ded Uncle Ded Ulysses S.Ded.'

'Maybe he's threatening us,'Josh said

"Threatening us?' Tommy snatched his hand away from the board 'How do you mean threatening

us exactly?'

Meg took her finger off the planchette more deliberately 'It's saying "you are dead" you

mean?'

'That's what it sounds like to me.'

'If it is a threat,'Joan said in a small voice/it's aimed directly at me.'

'Why do you say that?'Josh asked

Oh it's always about you, isn't it,' Meg said It's always about Joan.'

'I asked the question,'Joan said

Tommy leant forward into the light and pushed the hair away from his forehead 'Josh was

asking questions.'

'It was me who said: are you dead,'Joan said

'Oh my God, look,' Meg gasped 'Look at the planchette.'

The pointer had begun rolling on its own It moved across the board slowly at first, then

more and more rapidly U D-E-D U D-E-D U D-E-D As it raced back and forth, more and more

frantically - U D-E-D UD-E-D UDE-D UDED - Meg, Tommy and Joan watched transfixed Only whenJosh leant in from the darkness and snatched the planchette from the board did they react.

"That was amazing,' Tommy gasped.'Did you see that? That was amazing.'

'Why did you stop it?' Meg asked 'It was&'

'Amazing,' Tommy said

'Amazing,' Meg agreed

'You shouldn't have done that,'Joan said

'It was bollocks,'Josh said flatly.'Some sort of trick.'

Joan said,'Put it back on the board.'

He plonked the pointer back down 'It's as phoney as that crystal ball.'

Joan said,'Is it me? Were you threatening me?'

Once again the planchette began to roll all by itself H-E-L-L It stopped when it had

indicated the second letter L

'Hell yes? Hell no?' Tommy asked

'Are you in hell?'Joan asked

The pointer moved to the letter O and stopped

'Are you in hell o hello?'Josh said.'You're not going to fall for that are you?

Somebody's having a laugh.'

'Hello,'Joan said, showing no sign of seeing any humour in the situation "What is it you

want to tell us?'

The pointer moved again C B-A-L-L

'What's that supposed to mean?' Meg asked

'See ball?' Tommy suggested

Meg said excitedly, 'The crystal ball It's talking about the crystal ball!'

Josh said, 'Don't you think it would be a good idea to try and find out who it is who's

doing the talking?' He moved closer to the table so that he was back in the pool of light

He was frowning with concern, or it might have been contempt.'There's something deeply dumbabout all this.'

But Joan was already peering intently into the small globe of clear glass

'What can you see?' Tommy asked

'Can you see anything?' Meg asked eagerly

'Of course she can't see anything,' Josh sneered 'It's an oversized marble you pair of

pillocks - what do you expect her to seeV

'Shut up!'Joan hissed furiously, not looking up from the crystal ball 'Shut up, shut up,

shut up! If you're too thick to appreciate what's going on here just shut the hell up will

you and stay the hell out of it!'

Josh grunted, 'Screw you.' He shook his head and sighed 'I'm the stupid one? Yeah right.'

He shifted back from the table so that his face was once again hidden by the darkness.'Grease monkeys lack imagination,' Meg murmured, not unkindly 'It's in the genes

unfortunately.'

'Is there anything in the glass?' Tommy asked

'Nothing!'Josh scoffed from the shadows

In truth there was nothing, but Joan would never have admitted that She continued to staredeep into the brightly illuminated ball 'Show me what you want me to see,' she implored.'I await your purpose.'

Suddenly in the centre of the sphere there was a tiny black speck For a moment it hungthere like a blemish in the glass and then it began to expand and inflate, a dark spheregrowing within the transparent sphere, a total blackness absorbing light as it came, andleaving nothing When the dark had filled the globe and seemed about to cross the boundaryand flood out beyond the rim and into the room itself, a swirl of glowing beads appeared in

it They whirled and danced and slowly came together, coalescing into some-thing almost butnot quite recognisable

On the Ouija board the pointer was moving again It rattled as it raced to the letters U

D-E-D U D-E-D U-D-E-D-B-I-C-H U-D-E-D-B-I-C-H-J-O-A-N J-O-A-N-B-I-C-H-D-E-D

'All right Who's doing that?' Tommy demanded, but it was not clear whether he was talking

to the others or to the unseen presence

Meg half rose from the floor cushion.'I'm going to put the light on.'

'Don't do that,'Josh warned

Meg protested, This is sick.'

jerked back away from it

On the Ouija board the little planchette rattled and tapped as it flashed between the

letters B-I-C-H-D-E-D B-I-C-H-D-E-D B-I-C-H-D-E-D B-I-C-H-D-E-D

Joan stared at the board in startled horror 'It's Chloe's demon,' she whispered.'It wants

to kill me too.'

As if responding to her words the pointer steadied abruptly and, very slowly and

deliberately, spelt out: J-O-A-N C-O-X D-I-E-S N-E-X-T

'Who are you?' Tommy demanded, leaning forward and talking directly at the planchette.'Tell us your name you piece of shit!'

With a crack of static electricity the pointer leapt off the board and smacked him on theforehead The board itself upended and spun away into the darkness, hitting the wall with aloud slap Both the halogen desk lamps exploded simultaneously, showering small shards of

glass across the table and plunging the room into total darkness.

Joan screamed and then the main light switched itself on No one had moved except Joan Shewas lying on the floor, huddled up into the foetal position, and she was sobbing with fear.The crystal ball was unmoved on its small stand but inside what had been perfectly clearglass there was now a blemish: a small sphere of opaque, smoke-grey colouring It looked alot like a very large marble

The Doctor lay on the narrow bed in the guest quarters and pondered the wisdom of his

decision to stay over until the next day and talk to this Kellerfield Research Fellow

fellow

There was no real evidence that anything was seriously amiss here There was nothing thatactually warranted his attention The study of parapsychology was not in itself a matter

for concern

He folded his coat more comfortably around himself and tilted his hat over his eyes

He had allowed Leela's sour mood and the hysteria of a stressed young student to affecthim, and his imagination had got the better of him He was not normally so suggestible

Perhaps he was tired He didn't feel particularly tired but that was no guarantee he

wasn't

He yawned

Of course, it was possible that there might be some sort of field effect operating in this

area, which could be why there was research going on into parapsychology here He had comeacross such phenomena before though he himself had never been directly affected by them.Naturally occurring multiverse overlaps, space-time loop anomalies, self-regulating

temporal inversions and the like could all produce an identifiable reaction in certain

species In people there was often a subliminal, almost subconscious, response depending onpersonality type Once within a field behav-iour could become unsettled and fearful, or

obsessively focused on the mystical, the magical, the paranormal There were a number of,largely untested, theories as to why this should be His personal preference was for the

idea that such fields partially suppressed the higher brain functions, directly inhibiting

logic and rationality Belief in ghosts and demonic possession, all sorts of mindless

superstitions, could take hold in such circumstances Sudden mood shifts were also a commonfeature, and at the extremes there was always the possibility of violence

He stretched his legs a little

Then again, of course, it might be the other way round: the research itself might be

causing a weak field effect which could be feeding back on itself and intensifying to

produce a multiverse overlap or a space-time loop anomaly or even a self-regulating

temporal inversion&

The Doctor yawned again

He envied Leela's capacity to sleep wherever she found herself He had never had that

'I could not sleep,'Leela said.'I was thinking about the Tesh.' She wandered around the

room, looking at the bland prints on the wall, picking up functional objects like coat

hangers and the wastepaper bin and examining them half-heartedly

Do you think about the Tesh often?' the Doctor asked Or just when you can't sleep?'

Leela said, 'Do you remember the powers of the Tesh and how they used them against mytribe?'

'How could I forget?' The Doctor smiled, wanly 'I was partly responsible.'

'You said the Tesh were originally the technicians on the spaceship, and we Sevateem werethe survey team.We devel-oped strength and courage, they developed mental powers - what youcall psi powers or parapsychology.'

The Doctor nodded.'Yes that's right The Tesh did develop the sort of powers that our younghostess seems to be talking about.'

'They must have had some power to begin with,' Leela said 'Nothing can come from nothing.'The Doctor could still be surprised by Leela's quick intel-ligence He was always slightly

ashamed to need reminding that a lack of knowledge is not the same as stupidity He noddedencouragingly 'It's called a latent characteristic'

'Could the Tesh have come from this place?' Leela asked 'Could they have come from thisplace originally?'

'It's very likely that you all came from here originally'

She was obviously pleased by the answer I think one of them remained here,' she said

triumphantly.'I think there is a Tesh in this place.'

But the trouble with ignorance, the Doctor thought, is that it usually produces the same

results as stupidity No,' he said 'I didn't mean you all set out from Earth Although

that is theoretically possible I suppose Improbable but not impossibfe I meant this may

well be your planet of origin You're probably distantly descended from the people of

Earth You might meet your great-great-great-great-great&' His voice tailed off as he ran

out of fingers on his left hand

But Leela was not really listening.'A Tesh is here now I feel it There is a Tesh in this

place you call the university'

And sometimes he thought, stupidity is so stupid that it's difficult to know how to counter

it Or even where to begin He smiled and said with exaggerated patience,'No you don't

understand The university hasn't been here nearly long enough for anything like that to bepossible.'

Leela glared at him 'I know that,' she said witheringly 'But perhaps the Tesh has been

Perhaps it is as you said about meeting the man called Professor Parnaby Perhaps it is hissecond visit and it is happening first.'

I keep forgetting how often teasing you comes back to haunt me,' the Doctor said He swunghis legs off the bed and stood up.'What time is it?'

Leela shrugged 'It is daylight.'

Already?' The Doctor flung open the curtains,and autumn sunshine flooded into the

bedsitting room 'And it's a beautiful day,' he said, suddenly feeling refreshed and

unexpectedly cheerful 'I expect you'd like some breakfast wouldn't you?'

They had stayed with her all night It had taken the three of them to uncurl her and carry

her to the bed, but when they tried to turn out the light and leave her there she had

become hysterical Joan was terrified to be alone and even more terrified to fall asleep

though she did drift off eventually

None of them was particularly impressed with the way she was behaving, but Josh had beenthe least sympathetic 'What is this crap?' he had demanded softly.'Anything to do with

hysterical self-indulgence at all?' He had shaken his head and snorted derisively

'Nightmare on Elm Street revisited.'

Because he was so scathing about her, Meg and Tommy had felt obliged to defend Joan and anargument had been carried on in raised whispers.'She's a psychic,' Meg had said, glaring athim "They're not called sensitives for nothing.'

'Yes they are.' Josh was rubbing his hand compulsively backwards and forwards over thestubble of his scalp 'It's blithering bollocks The whole psychic thing is a con from

beginning to end and you know it.'

'No I don't.'

'And Joan certainly doesn't,' Tommy murmured.'She thinks she's a psychic, which is prettymuch the same thing as being one wouldn't you say?'

'I'd say it was pretty much the same thing as being barking,' Josh grunted 'Are you sure

she's not on something?'

'If you don't believe in any of this stuff,' Meg said,'what are you doing here?'

'Curiosity,'Josh said flatly

'And is that why you're on Hitchins' test programme?'

'Same reason you did probably'

'I was drunk at the time I thought it might be amusing.'

Josh shrugged 'There you go I was wasted and having a laugh.'

'You're way gifted,' Tommy said

'No I'm not.'

'Your PQ was off the scale.'

'I'm bloody not gifted!' Unusually, Josh sounded irritated Whatever the hell that means.'

'Josh Randall, a name to conjure with.' Tommy could never resist an easy joke even when itwas obvious he had touched a raw nerve 'You could be the next Aleister Crowley or Mystic

Josh bunched a fist For a moment it looked as though he was going to take a swing at

Tommy

'Now, now children,' Meg chided Play nicely'

Josh backed down from the overreaction and the three of them whispered and bickered onthrough the night

As it turned out Joan was the only one to get any sleep They woke her once the sun was upand they knew the campus cafeteria would be open for business Oddly, con-sidering theexperiences of the previous night, they all felt better, and optimistic in a vague

unfocused sort of way Joan was subdued but calmer She claimed to remember nothing of whathad happened

Chapter Five

Leela was ravenously hungry She sat at the cafeteria table and ate quickly and without

concern for appearances, washing the food down with occasional swallows of water from thebottle she had been given She ignored the imple-ments - what the Doctor referred to as

'cutlery' -and used her fingers like any warrior in the field would do Around her at other

tables people who were eating with cutlery glanced at her and then glanced away again

quickly The bolder among them stared more openly and seemed amused Most of the eaterswere as young as she was herself The Doctor said they were students, here to acquire

knowledge and wisdom Leela could not understand what knowledge or wisdom they wouldacquire by watching her eat She glared at the starers until they too looked away

She had no idea what animals and plants might have been used in the preparation of the foodshe was devouring The Doctor had said it was not poisonous and she trusted his judgement

in these things, if not his taste The food was called fried breakfast and it was greasy

but not unpleasant It would sustain her for a while, she thought

The Doctor had said he was not hungry and, taking only water with him, he had wandered off

to look for the man who was doing the experiments in parapsychology He was called DoctorGhostbuster Bazzer Hitchins - what elaborate and ridiculous fighting names these peoplegave themselves - and she wondered whether the 'doctor' part of it was the same as the name

of the Doctor Were the fighting names linked? Had the Doctor really been here before? Had

he done the same on this world as he had done on her world? Was there a mad computercreature here too?

Perhaps the Doctor was not her friend after all Perhaps he was ashamed to have her withhim and was laughing at her ignorance behind her back In fact, he was laughing at her

ignorance to her face, now she thought about it He sneered at her questions He talked

more to these students than he ever talked to her He told them things they were not

supposed to know, without them even having to ask a question He told them things, theytold him things, they all ignored her Except when she was eating fried breakfast She

wiped the grease from her mouth with the palm of her hand and wiped her hand on her tunic.Leela knew the way she was eating had made the Doctor uncomfortable and that this was why

he had not waited for her to finish She knew because he had said so 'It always helps if

you can try to fit in with the local custom and practice,' he had told her 'It makes you

less conspicuous and you can learn more from watching than from being watched.'

For some reason she could not quite understand, this had made her more determined to behavelike a warrior of the tribe of Sevateem She had earned the right She was not a child to

creep about and hide and watch Warriors were proud and fearless.You faced down an enemywith boldness so he knew that you had beaten him before you fought Modesty is fear, fear

is failure, failure is death The warrior-trainers had taught her that Who was the Doctor

to try and tell her anything different?

Perhaps the Doctor did not want her to be ready to face her enemies Perhaps the Doctorwanted to get her killed If he was working with the Tesh that would explain his behaviourtowards her Supposing a Tesh had come with them in the TARDIS& or more than one She hadfelt their presence all around her as soon as they had come to this place Supposing all ofthem had come, hidden in the secret rooms in the TARDIS This could be part of a counter-strike against her tribe by the eternal enemy That would explain why the Doctor was so

reluctant to let her travel with him That would explain why the Doctor had mocked her whenshe told him of her suspicions That would explain where he had gone He was meeting withthe Tesh

Leela's thoughts became more jumbled and her chaotic anger grew as she lost the thread ofwhat she was trying to remember and understand She finished eating, licked the plate andpushed it away Somewhere behind her she heard someone laugh She put her hand on the hilt

of her knife Where was the Doctor? Why had he left her here among these people who hatedher?

'Nice outfit Whatever it is you're selling I'll take six, and two for Sundays.' The young

man was standing at the table looking down at her.'My name,' he went on in a suspiciouslydifferent voice and a completely changed way of speaking,'is Michael Caine and I'll thankyou to stop pointing that bloody spear at me)'

Leela leapt at him, drawing her knife as she vaulted over the table and crashed her

shoulder into his chest

The Doctor had found Hitchins' laboratory without much difficulty but it was locked, and

knocking on the door and calling out, 'Hullo? Hullo Doctor Hitchins? Are you in there

Doctor Hitchins?' produced no response at all

"It's ten o'clock in the morning,' a voice said behind him 'And trust me, as far as Barry

Hitchins is concerned that's the middle of the night.'

The Doctor turned to find a short, dark-complexioned man smiling at him He returned thesmile 'Temporal-shift lag,'

he said nodding 'I used to have the same problem myself It can be quite disconcerting ifyou try and maintain any sort of relative consciousness rather than an absolute per-sonalreference point during a transition It takes practice to develop the mental discipline to

cope Though some people do take to it quite naturally My present travelling companion,for example, has no difficulties that I've been able to ascertain She is a primitive of

course, which might have something to do with it.'

'Oh dear' The man was still smiling but his expression had become slightly wry 'Either

that's a post-ironic gesture in the general direction of my upcoming - or rather my

upchucking lecture - or you're a time-travel nut.'

'You're Professor Parnaby?' the Doctor asked delightedly

'You didn't know?'

The Doctor offered his hand I've been looking forward to meeting you.'

Parnaby shook the hand warily 'Or possibly looking back to meeting me?' he suggested.For a moment the Doctor found himself wondering if whole areas of the campus had been wiredfor sound 'What makes you say that?' he challenged

'Just a little time-travel gag,' Parnaby said with a slightly nervous laugh 'I have to go

now.' He started to edge away down the corridor 'I suggest you try Barry Hitchins again

around midday, mm'kay?'

As he started to walk off the Doctor fell into step beside him and said, 'Do you believe in

coincidences, Professor?'

You'd have to define your terms more precisely I'm afraid,' Parnaby said 'Belief and

coincidence Both a bit vague as they stand.'

The Doctor suspected Bill Parnaby was one of those dis-idvantaged people who found it

difficult to be rude to strangers 'When was the last time you told anyone to go away and

leave you alone?'

Parnaby frowned 'I'm sorry?'

'Or when was the last time you gave a straight answer to a straight question for that

matter?'

Parnaby looked at him sideways Who are you exactly?'

'I'm flattered,'the Doctor said/that you would think I could answer such a question.' He

smiled his most vivid smile 'A philosopher's question of such terrifying complexity that

in all my travels I have met only one entity who came close to answering it It was a

planet-sized fungus whose name as far as I recall was a small electric shock and a ratherunpleasant smell.'

Parnaby stopped and turned to the Doctor, 'listen old chap&'

'I'm not that old,' the Doctor said and thought: why am I talking so much? Is there

something strange going on here? There is something strange going on here This is not

normal behaviour I am not behaving normally

'Is there some medication,' Parnaby was saying solicitously, 'that maybe you've forgotten

to take?'

'Medication?' The Doctor was puzzled Why should this short philosopher imagine that he hadforgotten to take medicine?

'Pills perhaps? Only I notice that you're carrying a bottle of designer water.'

The Doctor looked down at the bottle of water he had in his hand That's odd, he thought,

where had he got that from? Then he remembered there was another Clearspring Water Companyadvertising display, and more free samples, in the cafeteria where he had taken Leela to

get her some breakfast He hadn't eaten or drunk anything else since they arrived so could

it be that the water was affecting him? Could the water be contaminated in some way?

'Is the water to help you swallow your pills?' Parnaby suggested gently

The Doctor recognised the exaggeratedly relaxed tone of voice which he himself often usedwhen he was trying to calm a tense situation, and he realised with a jolt that this man washumouring him This man seemed to think he was some sort of dangerous lunatic Could it bethe water? He put the bottle in his pocket and said with a cheerful smile, 'I don't take

pills Jelly babies I take jelly babies Would you care for a jelly baby?' He pulled the

bag from his pocket

Parnaby ignored the bag 'I tell you what,' he suggested, maintaining the same carefully

calm voice he had been using all along, 'why don't we go to my office? We can have a bit of

a sit-down You can tell me all about it Maybe there's someone we can& call.'

Call?'

To help,' Parnaby said, shaking his head and shrugging theatrically in a rather obvious

attempt to keep his sugges-tion vague and unthreatening.'If there was someone you felt

might be able to help Someone who's helped you before&? Do you remember anyone like that?''Like a doctor you mean?' the Doctor teased

'Not necessarily,' Parnaby lied

The Doctor couldn't resist it He leant closer to Parnaby and, lowering his voice a little,

confided, 'As coincidence would have it, I am the Doctor'

'Of course you are,' Parnaby agreed 'So what do you think then? Shall we go to my office

and chat for a while?'

'Why not,' the Doctor said Parnaby, he decided, was clearly more than just a man who wasreluctant to be rude to strangers: he was actually concerned to be of assistance The

Doctor didn't need the sort of help he had in mind, of course, but nevertheless kindness,

all kinds of kindness, should always be acknowledged and encouraged

Parnaby took him lightly by the arm and began to lead him down the corridor 'I didn't

catch your name,' he said tentatively

'I didn't throw it,' the Doctor chortled, and he was suddenly washed through with a warm

flood of gratitude towards the diminutive thinker for reminding him of inno-cent times long

past It had been such a long time since he was able to use that joke or anything nearly asfunny He had always found nostalgia puzzling, but now for the first time it seemed he

could understand it properly He felt small tears gathering and trickling into the corners

of his eyes He missed so many things; all gone and lost to him; lost and for ever out of

reach He missed himself as he was He had changed He missed the Time Lord he had been Hemissed the past so very much Missed the past so very much? That was absurd He was a TimeLord - how could he possibly be missing the past? That made no sense at all There was

something wrong here He was not thinking normally Something was definitely affecting him.Could it be the water?

'I'm Bill Parnaby,' Parnaby persisted meanwhile 'And you are&'

I'm the Doctor,' the Doctor said 'I already told you that:

Parnaby nodded 'Just the Doctor.'

'That's right Just the Doctor.' The warm flood of gratitude had drained away Parnaby was

beginning to irritate him

'Just the Doctor That's cool.' Parnaby was still nodding understanding^ 'I can understand

that.'

The Doctor glowered No you can't.You have no idea what I'm talking about.' He thought: /

have no idea what I'm talking about so I'm quite sure you don't It must be the water He

tried to work out how long it was since he had drunk any of it

'I didn't mean to offend you,' Parnaby said anxiously

"That's because you think I'm mad,' the Doctor said, and you're afraid I might be violent

Well I'm not violent And I'm not mad So be a good little philosopher and stop patronising

me!'

'Or what?' Parnaby asked 'You'll use gratuitous abuse to demonstrate your pacifism and

mental stability?'

'Is it a coincidence,' the Doctor asked, ignoring the philoso-pher's comment, 'that time

travel and parapsychology are both being studied at this university?'

'No,' Parnaby said flatly "There you are you see? I can give you a straight answer to a

straight question No, it is not a coincidence.'

They reached Parnaby's office and he unlocked the door It is not a coincidence becausetime travel is not being studied at this university.' He ushered the Doctor inside.'Have aseat.'

The Doctor surveyed the small cluttered room 'This is a small office,' he remarked

Parnaby sat down behind the desk, pulled open one of its drawers and rummaged around in itfor a moment 'Yes, but then as you pointed out I am a small philosopher.' He closed thedrawer again

The Doctor began examining the contents of the book shelves 'I didn't mean to hurt yourfeelings.' As far as he could see there were none of the standard texts on time travel Infact there was almost nothing he was familiar with

'You didn't hurt my feelings,' Parnaby said

'Obviously not,' the Doctor mused 'I'm reassured Because I expect you'd have mentioned it

if I had&'

'Have a seat,' Parnaby said again

The Doctor gave up on the books and looked at him more carefully The philosopher seemednervous suddenly Do I make you nervous?' The Doctor gave Parnaby his most reassuringsmile It seemed to make him more nervous if anything 'There's no need to be nervous of

me I'm not nearly as tall as I look you know.' It probably wasn't a good idea to tower

over him like this, the Doctor thought, it did tend to make people nervous He sat down inthe chair Parnaby was indicating, made himself comfortable and said, Parapsychology.''What about it?' Parnaby asked, glancing towards the door

'It is being studied?' the Doctor asked

'Yes, but it's clearly nonsense.'

If only that were true, the Doctor thought Why is it hap-pening here in this place at thistime? Which came first: the research or the field effect? And why am I so badly affected?Unless it's the water It could be the water There could be some sort of hallucinogenicpollutant in the water I must get it analysed He said, 'There is a properly funded

research programme, I've been told.'

That means nothing,' Parnaby said, sighing 'If funding and good sense were synonymous,mass religious movements would be rational by definition Rich men would all be geniuses.''How long has it been going on?' the Doctor asked

Weirdly, Parnaby glanced at his watch before saying, 'Mass religious movements? Stupid richmen?'

'The research into parapsychology.'

Parnaby shrugged 'The research fellowship's been up and running a couple of years& threemaybe.'

'And this water,' the Doctor said.'How long have they been giving away this water?'

'I have no idea.' Parnaby glanced past the Doctor towards the door again.'But I don't see